Saturday, May 04, 2013

The words
and phrases are spoken and written day after day, year after year - generally
without any wonderment as to how they became part of the language. All have a
history, a story.
For those of you who liked Parts I thru III and want more, here is
more.
"The Called Shot" A heavier, slower and older Babe Ruth had
much more to prove in 1932. And prove he did! Batting .341, driving in 137
runs, slugging 41 homers, the Sultan of Swat pushed the New York Yankees to
another pennant. The Cubs of Chicago were the opposition in the World Series.

There was
bad recent history between the two teams. Joe McCarthy had been let go as
Chicago manager in 1930. He wanted payback. Ruth's old buddy, Mark Koenig, now
a Cub, had helped his new team win the pennant. His Chicago teammates voted
Ruth's old buddy only a half World Series share. The Babe was not happy about
that.

On October l in Chicago during batting practice Ruth shouted: "Hey, you
damn bum Cubs, you won't be seeing Yankee Stadium again. This is going to be
all over Sunday." The Babe was referring to the fact that the Yanks had
won the first two games in New York.
The game got underway before 49, 986. Lemons from the stands and
curses from the Cubs were heaped upon the Yankees. Chicago fans showered Ruth
with fruits and vegetables and other projectiles when he was on defense in the
outfield. The Babe smiled, doffed his cap, felt the fire.

When he came to bat in the fifth inning, Ruth had already slugged a three run
homer into the bleachers in right centerfield. He had more in
store. Right-hander Charlie Root got a strike on Ruth, who as accounts go,
raised up one big finger and yelled "strike one!"

Another fast ball strike. Ruth, as the story continues, raised two fingers and
bellowed "strike two!"

Then as the story has been handed down, the 38-year-old Yankee legend stepped
out of the batter's box and pointed. Some said he pointed at Root; others said
the pointed at the Chicago bench, others said at the centerfield
bleachers.

"To tell the truth," Joe McCarthy said, "I didn't see him point
anywhere at all. But maybe I turned my head for a moment."

"The Babe pointed out to right field," said George Pipgras who
pitched and won that game, "and that's where he hit the ball."

The count was 2-2 when Babe swung from his heels. Johnny Moore, the
Chicago centerfielder started back, then stopped. The ball disappeared into the
right field bleachers, 436 feet from home plate, the l5th and last World Series
home run for Babe Ruth, the longest home run ever hit to that point in time in
Wrigley Field.

"As I hit the ball," Ruth would say later, "every muscle in my
system, every sense I had, told me that I had never hit a better one, that as
long as I lived nothing would ever feel as good as this one."
Chicago fans cheered and applauded the Babe as he rounded the bases yelling out
a different curse for each Cub infielder.

When the "Sultan of Swat" reached third base, he paused. Then he
bowed toward the Chicago dugout. Then he came across home plate.

Through the years the debate has
continued. Did he or did he not call the home run?

Babe Ruth explained: "I didn't exactly point to any spot like the
flagpole. I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough.
All I wanted to do was give the thing a ride...outta the park...anywhere.
"Every time I went to the bat the Cubs on the bench would yell ' Oogly
googly.'It's all part of the game, but this particular inning when I went to
bat there was a whole chorus of Oogly goalies. The first pitch was a pretty
good strike, and I didn't kick. But the second was outside and turned around to
beef about it. As I said, Gabby Hartnett said 'Oogly googly.'That kinda burned
me and I said 'All right, you bums, I'm gonna knock this one a
mile.' I guess I pointed, too."

CALLED STRIKE A strike that a batter does not swing at but which is announced
as a strike by the umpire.

Can of corn An lazy fly ball.

Candy" In 1939, William Arthur Cummings was elected to the
Hall of Fame, for his alleged invention of the curve ball more than his talent.
His nickname came from fans ­ as a sign of affection.

"Cannon" Jimmy Wynn, for his power at bat.

"CAN'T ANYBODY HERE PLAY THIS GAME?" In 1960 Casey Stengel managed
the New York Yankees to a first-place finish, on the strength of a .630
percentage compiled by winning 97 games and losing 57. By 1962 he was the
manager of the New York Mets, a team that finished tenth in a ten-team league.
They finished 60 games out of first place, losing more games ( 120) than any
other team in the 20th century. Richie Ashburn, who batted .306 for the Mets
that season and then retired, remembers those days: "It was the only time
I went to a ball park in the major leagues and nobody expected you to
win."

A bumbling collection of castoffs, not-quite-ready for prime-time major league
ball players, paycheck collectors, and callow youth, the Mets underwhelmed the
opposition. They had Jay Hook, who could talk for hours about why a curve ball
curved (he had a Masters degree in engineering) but couldn't throw one
consistently. They had "Choo-Choo" Coleman, an excellent low-ball
catcher, but the team had very few low-ball pitchers. They had "Marvelous
Marv" Throneberry, a Mickey Mantle look-a-like in the batter's box--and
that's where the resemblance ended. Stengel had been spoiled with the likes of
Mantle, Maris, Ford, Berra, etc. Day after day he would watch the Mets and be
amazed at how they could find newer and more original ways to beat themselves.
In desperation--some declare it was on the day he witnessed pitcher A1 Jackson
go 15 innings yielding but three hits, only to lose the game on two errors
committed by Marvelous Marv--Casey bellowed out his plaintive query,
"Can't anybody here play this game?"

"Cap" Adrian Constantine Anson, a shortening of his managerial
title. He was also known as "Big Swede"for his size and Nordic
extraction.

"Captain Hook" Manager Sparky Anderson never hesitated to
use his Cincinnati
bullpen

"Carnesville Plowboy''
Spud Chandler was raised on a farm in Carnesville, Georgia, hence the
nickname. Spurgeon "Spud" Chandler was better known during his
collegiate days at the University of Georgia as a football player who also
played baseball. Chandler's had a career mark of 109-43 with the
Yankees from 1937-47. He was a part of seven World Series teams.

"CASEY AT THE BAT" The
title of the Ernest Thayer poem, written in 1888, about the legendary hero of
the Mudville baseball team. The final stanzas are especially famous:

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip; his teeth are clenched with hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land, the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville--mighty Casey has struck out!

"CAT-a-lyst" name given to Mickey Rivers by Howard Cosell for his
ability to trigger Yankee team offense.

Friday, April 12, 2013

With the release of the new film focused on “Number 42,” interest in
Jackie Robinson has been revived and rightfully so. He is an important
historical figure. And I had the opportunity to do a lot of writing about Jack
Roosevelt Robinson in several of my books.

So for your reading pleasure, a tasting
menu.

One
of the perks I have experienced in writing sports books and articles has been
the interesting characters I have met, the friendships I have made.

One such person was Irving Rudd, a Damon Runyan type character who for a time
was the publicity director of the old Brooklyn Dodgers.

Irving became a good friend of mine and my wife Myrna. His words enrich my book
RICKEY AND ROBINSON. His words over
and over again enriched the five oral histories the Frommer have written.

Jackie Robinson and Irving Rudd had a special relationship.What follows is an
insight into the black pioneer from our book IT HAPPENED IN THE CATSKILLS. It comes to you in the voice of
Irving Rudd

Recalling a winter weekend in 1954. Irving and his wife and Jackie
Robinson and his wife Rachel went up to the famed Grossinger's Hotel for some
relaxation.

IRVING RUDD: "You skate?"
Jackie Robinson asked.

"Not very well." I answered.

"C'mon, Irv; let's go skating anyway."

I said, "Okay," and we all
went to the icehouse. We put skates on. The wives go to the rail to watch.
Jackie goes out on the ice and proceeds to lose his balance and falls flat on
his back. Geez! The image of Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Dodgers, came
into my head. I just blew my job. Jackie Robinson just fractured something -
why didn't I stop him from skating?

Then Robinson gets up and brushes
himself off.

"C'mon, Irv, let's race!" He gives me that big smile.

So the two of us like two drunks go around the rink of Grossinger's. He's
flopping on his knees. I'm sliding on my can. We get up and keep going and
flopping and going and flopping and going. And he beats me by five yards.

"Let's do it again," he
says.

Around
we go. This time he beats me by about 20 yards.

"One more time," he says.

By now, he's really skating. He is such a natural, gifted athlete. He's skating
like a guy who has been at it for weeks. It's no contest. He's almost lapped
the field on me.

Now there's a crowd that's gathered
and they're cheering. He puts his arms around me, and he wasn't a demonstrative
man. "Irv," he says,
"am I glad you were here this weekend with me. I just had to beat someone
before I went home."

That story give true insight into Jack Roosevelt Robinson and what he went
through in his time as a Brooklyn Dodger. And what a time it was: He
played in the major leagues for a decade. He won the inaugural Rookie of the
Year Award in 1947, the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949, and
he helped the Dodgers win six pennants and one world championship. Despite all
the pressure he played under, Jackie Robinson was still able to record a
lifetime batting average of .311.

From my point of view there is no event in sports history as significant as the
breaking of baseball's color Line. It changed the national pastime forever. It
ushered in a whole new era in baseball and in all sports. All these long
years after Robinson's death at the age of only 53 in 1972 - -more
athletes, not just the black ones, would be well served to remember the debt
owed Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey.

Here is how I described what it was like at the very start in my book RICKEY AND ROBINSON.

With the blue number 42 on the back of his Brooklyn Dodger home uniform, Jackie
Robinson took his place at first base at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947. It was
32 years to the day since Jack Johnson had become the first black heavyweight
champion of the world.

Many of the 26,633 at that tiny
ballpark on that chilly spring day were not even baseball fans, but had come
out to see "the one" who would break the sport's age-old color line.
Robinson's wife, Rachel, was there along with the infant Jackie, Jr. Many in
the crowd wore "I'm for Jackie" buttons and badges, and screamed each
time the black pioneer came to bat or touched the ball.

Jackie Robinson grounded out to short his first time up. He was retired
on a fly ball to left field in his second at bat. He grounded into a
rally-killing double play in his final at bat of the day.

The Dodgers won the game, 5-3, nipping Johnny Sain and the Boston Braves.
For Robinson it was a muted performance, but the first of his 1,382 major
league games was in the record books - and he had broken baseball's color line
forever.

"I was nervous on my first day in my first game at Ebbets Field,"
Robinson told reporters afterward. "But nothing has bothered me
since."

On April 18, 1947, at the Polo Grounds, in the shadow of the largest black
community in the country, Jackie Robinson smashed his first major league home
run as the Dodgers defeated the Giants, 10-4.

Writer James Baldwin had noted: "Back in the thirties and forties,
Joe Louis was the only hero that we ever had. When he won a fight, everybody in
Harlem was up in heaven. On that April day the large contingent of blacks in
the crowd of nearly 40, 000 had another hero to be "up in heaven"
about, another hero to stand beside Joe Louis."

Part sociological phenomenon, part entertainment spectacle, part revolution,
part media event - the Jackie Robinson story played out its poignant, dramatic
and historic scenes through that 1947 season.

Toward the end of the season, a Jackie Robinson Day was staged at Ebbets Field.
Robinson was now a major drawing card rivaling Bob Feller and Ted Williams in
the American League.

`"I thank you all." Robinson said over the microphone in that
high-pitched voice. He acknowledged the gifts he'd received, which included a
new car, a television and radio set and an electric broiler.

The famed and great dancer “Bill “Bojangles” Robinson stood next to
Jackie Robinson. "I am 69 years old," Bill Robinson said.
"But I never thought I would live to see the day when I would stand face
to face with Ty Cobb in Technicolor."

The motivations of Brooklyn Dodger general ManagerBranch Rickeyhave always been
questioned. Why did he signJackie Robinson? How much of what he did came from a moral conviction that
the color line must go, and how much came from a desire to make money and field
a winning team?

Monte Irvin,who wrote the foreword to my book who came up to star
for the New York Giantsin 1949, suggests
that what Rickey did is far more important than why he did it.

"Regardless of the motives," Irvin observes, "Rickey had the
conviction to pursue and to follow through."

Breaking baseball's color line enabled Rickey to tap into a gold mine, but he elected
not to monopolize the rich lode of talent in theNegro Leagues.

Monte Irvin cold have been a Brooklyn Dodger, as well as other Negro League
greats likeLarry Doby,Sam Jethroe, Satchel Paige. But Rickey had Robinson,Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and Joe Black. He was very much in favor of
the other teams integrating, too.

Bigoted major league club owners who had called Rickey complaining,
"You're gonna kill baseball bringing that nigger in now," were now
asking, "Branch, do you know where I can get a couple of colored boys as
good as Jackie and Campy and Newk?"

Branch Rickey invented the baseball farm system when he was with the St. Louis
Cardinals and presided over their famous Gashouse gang. He was an incredibly
brilliant baseball man. He ran the Dodgers with a calm efficiency. Part of that
calm efficiency translated to advising Robinson well. Reacting to the taunts
and threats, and fighting back against the bigots could win a battle. But too
much protesting could lose the war.

Jackie Robinson took the abuse: the cut signs by players near their throats,
the verbal curses, the spiking attempts, the cold shouldering, the death
threats that came in the mail.

By 1949, Jackie Robinson was in his third season as a Brooklyn Dodger and was
no longer the lone black man on the baseball diamond - he could now let it all
hang out. Branch Rickey who had kept the man Dodger fans called
"Robby" under wraps was elated.

"I sat back happily," Rickey recalled, "knowing that with the
restraints removed, Robinson was going to show theNational Leaguea thing or two."

Jackie's wife Rachel Robinson told me: "It was hard for a man as assertive
as Jack to contain his own rage, yet he felt that the end goal was so critical
that there was no question that he would do it. And he knew he could do it even
better if he could ventilate, express himself, use his own style."

And what a style it was!

At
times the style seemed to be a case of trick photography. He was an illusionist
in a baseball uniform, a magician on the base paths. The walking leads, the
football-like slides, the change of pace runs all were part of Robinson’s
approach to the game.

Today Jackie Robinson remains the stuff of dreams, the striving for potential,
the substance of accomplishment. Today he remains a powerful, driving symbol of
a person with limitless athletic ability, the weight of his people on his soul,
raging against a world he didn't make.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson played for the Dodgers of Brooklyn for a decade, and
then he was done. Not many remember that he was actually traded to the New York
Giants in 1956 - -but he refused to go. The owner of the Giants Horace
Stoneham presented Robinson with a blank check –“Fill in the
amount…”

Jackie refused. “I came in as a Dodger and that’s how I go out,”he said.
“Thanks anyway.”

The thanks is due the man they called “Robby” for what he accomplished in
breaking the color line in baseball will last through all eternity. He blazed a
path for many to follow, and they have enriched the game of baseball with their
talent, verve, drive, and commitment. It has become a better game.

I had the good fortune to interview Jack’s brother Mack Robinson in
Pasadena, California. I was a bit shocked that he taped me taping him. He was
that suspicious of writers. But that is another story.

“From time to time, Mack told me, “I’m watching sporting events and I
look at the TV screen and I see Jackie Robinson. I look at the whole spectrum
of black America’s life from 1900 to 1947. We’re no longer the butlers, the
servants, the maid. We’re senators and congressmen. We’re baseball managers. I
trace it back to my brother and Branch Rickey breaking the color line and
creating a social revolution in a white man’s world. Blacks have excelled
in all areas because Jackie Robinson showed the world we could.?

The last words in my RICKEY AND
ROBINSON also belong to Irving Rudd:

"I always used to think of who I would like going down a dark alley
with me. I can think of a lot of great fighters, gangsters I was raised with in
Brownsville, strong men like Gil Hodges. But for sheer courage, I would pick
Jackie (Robinson). He didn't back up."

Finally, a story that appears in IT
HAPPENED IN BROOKLYN, the oral history I wrote along with my wife Myrna
Katz Frommer.
The speaker is
identified as MAX WECHSLER:

When school was out, I sometimes went with my father in his taxi. One summer
morning, we were driving in East Flatbush down Snyder Avenue when he pointed
out a dark red brick house with a high porch.
“I think Jackie Robinson
lives there,?he said. He parked across the street, and we got out of the cab,
stood on the sidewalk, and looked at it.
Suddenly the front door
opened. A black man in a short-sleeved shirt stepped out. I didn’t believe it.
Here we were on a quiet street on a summer morning. No one else was around.
This man was not wearing the baggy, ice-cream-white uniform of the Brooklyn
Dodgers that accentuated his blackness. He was dressed in regular clothes,
coming out of a regular house in a regular Brooklyn neighborhood, a guy like
anyone else, going for a newspaper and a bottle of milk.
Then incredibly, he
crossed the street and came right towards me. Seeing that unmistakable
pigeon-toed walk, the rock of the shoulders and hips I had seen so many times
on the baseball field, I had no doubt who it was.
“Hi Jackie, I’m one of
your biggest fans,?I said self-consciously. “Do you think the Dodgers are gonna
win the pennant this year?”

His handsome face looked sternly down at me. “We’ll try our best,”he said.
“Good luck,” said.
“Thanks.” He put his big
hand out, and I took it. We shook hands, and I felt the strength and firmness
of his grip.
I was a nervy kid, but I
didn’t ask for an autograph or think to prolong the conversation. I just
watched as he walked away down the street.
At last the truth can be
told. I am blowing my own cover. That kid, was me.

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

The words and phrases are spoken and written day after day,
year after year - generally without any wonderment as to how they became part
of the language. All have a history, a story. Now with the 2013 baseball season
with us -some more language of baseball to savor, to enjoy.

For those of you who liked Part I, Part II and wrote in to offer suggestions
and ask for more - here is more - Part III. As always, reactions and
suggestions always welcome.

THE
BABE George Herman Ruth probably leads the list for most nick-names
acquired. First called "Babe" by teammates on the Baltimore Orioles,
his first professional team because of his youth, G.H.Ruth was also called
"Jidge" by Yankee teammates, short for George. They also called
him "Tarzan." He called most players "Kid," because he
couldn't remember names, even of his closest friends. Opponents called
him "The Big "Monk" and "Monkey."

Many of Babe Ruth's nick-names came from over-reaching sports writers who
attempted to pay tribute to his slugging prowess:" The Bambino",
"the Wali of Wallop", "the Rajah of Rap", "the Caliph
of Clout", "the Wazir of Wham", and "the Sultan of Swat",
The Colossus of Clout, Maharajah of Mash, The Behemoth of Bust,
"The King of Clout."

His main nickname was rooted in President Grover Cleveland's Baby Ruth. Perhaps
the greatest slugger of all time and also one of baseball's most colorful characters,
Ruth set some 50 records in his 22 years as a player. His accomplishments, his
personality, his nickname-all combined to rocket major league baseball firmly
into the nation's psyche.

"Babe" and "Ruth" In spring training 1927, Babe Ruth
bet pitcher Wilcy Moore $l00 that he would not get more than three hits all
season. A notoriously weak hitter, Moore somehow managed to get six hits in 75
at bats. Ruth paid off his debt and Moore purchased two mules for his
farm. He named them "Babe" and "Ruth "for
Ruth

CHIEF
BENDER Charles Albert Bender won 210 games and compiled a 2.45 lifetime
earned-run average in 16 years of pitching. He was admitted to baseball's Hall
of Fame in 1953. His nickname came from the fact that he was a Chippewa Indian.

CLOWN PRINCE OF BASEBALL Al Schacht performed for only three seasons as a
member of the Washington Senators (1919-21), but he still was able to make a
mighty reputation on the baseball field. Schacht was a comic and his routines
centered on the foibles and eccentricities of the National Pastime. It was said
that nobody did it better, and that's why Schacht was dubbed the Clown Prince.

DAFFINESS BOYS Also known as Dem Brooklyn Bums, the 1926 Brooklyn Dodgers
wrought havoc on friend and foe alike. The hotshot of the team was
freeswinging, slump-shouldered Babe Herman, dubbed the Incredible Hoiman, who
bragged that among his stupendous feats was stealing second base with the bases
loaded. Once Herman was one of a troika of Dodger base runners who found
themselves all on third base at the same time. A Dodger rookie turned to
Brooklyn manager "Uncle" Wilbert Robinson on the bench. "You
call that playing baseball?" "Uncle" Robbie responded,
"Leave them alone. That's the first time they've been together all
year."

"DON'T LOOK BACK. SOMETHING MIGHT BE GAINING ON YOU" This line
of homespun wisdom formed the sixth rule of a recipe attributed to former
baseball pitching great Leroy "Satchel" Paige. The other five rules
were (1) avoid fried meats which angry up the blood; (2) if your stomach
disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts; (3) keep your juices
flowing by jangling around gently as you move; (4) go very gently on the vices,
such as carrying on in society-the social ramble ain't restful; (5) avoid
running at all times. It seems that most of us have managed to break all of Mr.
Paige's rules more than once. As for rule 5-don't tell it to your neighborhood
jogger.

DOUBLE NO HITTER It's almost a baseball cliché. A no-hitter is
tossed. And the next time that pitcher takes the mound, there is all the talk
and speculation about the possibility of a second straight no-no taking
place. And always what Johnny Vander Meer did 62 years ago today comes back
into the public consciousness.

On June 11, 1938, the Cincinnati hurler no-hit the Boston Bees, 3-0. Four
nights later, he was tabbed to start against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the first
night game ever in the New York City metropolitan area. To that point in time,
only two pitchers had ever recorded two career no-hitters. No one had ever
posted two no-hitters in a season. No one had probably even contemplated
back-to-back no-hitters.

More than 40,000 (Fire Department rules notwithstanding) jammed into Ebbets
Field to see the first night game in that tiny ball park's history and also
bear witness to Vander Meer questing after his second straight no-hitter.
Utilizing a one-two-three-four pitching rhythm that saw him cock his right leg
in the air before he delivered the ball to the plate, "Vandy"
featured a fast ball that was always moving and a curve ball that broke ever so
sharply. Inning after inning, the Dodgers went down hitless. In the seventh
inning, Vander Meer walked two batters. But the fans of "Dem Bums"
cheered the Cincinnati pitcher on, sensing they were witnessing baseball
history. The ninth inning began with Cincinnati holding a 6-0 lead. Buddy
Hasset was retired on a grounder. Then suddenly, Vander Meer lost control of
the situation. He loaded the bases on walks. Reds manager Bill McKechnie came
out to the mound to talk to his beleaguered pitcher.

"Take it easy, Johnny," he said, "but get the no-hitter."
Vander Meer got Ernie Koy to hit a grounder to infielder Lou Riggs, who
conservatively elected to go to the plate for the force-out for the second out.
The bases were still loaded, though. Leo "Lippy" Durocher, the Dodger
player-manager and a veteran of many wars, stepped into the batter's box.

Only
the "Lip" stood between Vander Meer and the double no-hitter.
Durocher took a lunging swing and smashed the ball down the right-field line.
But it went foul into the upper deck. Bedlam and tension intermingled at Ebbets
Field as Vander Meer's left arm came around and delivered the pitch to
Durocher, who swung and popped up the ball into short center field. Harry Craft
clutched the ball. Johnny Vander Meer had made baseball history.

Fans
leaped out onto the playing field, but Vander Meer's Cincinnati teammates had
formed a protective shield around the exhausted hurler as he scurried into the
relative calm of the dugout. His mother and father, who had come to see their
son pitch with about 500 others from their hometown, were not as lucky. Swarms
of well wishers and autograph-hunters milled about Vandy's parents. It took
about half an hour before they could be extricated from the mob of admirers.
The event remains in memory as the miracle of 1938, consecutive no-hitters spun
by John Samuel Vander Meer, the man they called the "Dutch Master."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent congratulations. Newspapers and magazines
featured every detail of the event for months. For Vander Meer, the double
no-hitters were especially sweet coming against Boston and Brooklyn - teams he
tried out for and been rejected by.

Vander
Meer performed for 13 big-league seasons, winning 119 games and losing 121. He
perhaps would be remembered as a southpaw pitcher who never totally fulfilled
his promise if it had not been for the epic moments of June 11 and June 15,
1938.
HITLESS WONDERS The 1906 Chicago White Sox had a team batting average of .230,
the most anemic of all the clubs in baseball that year. The team's pitching,
however, more than made up for its lack of hitting. The White Sox staff
recorded shutouts in 32 of the team's 93 victories. The "Hitless Wonders"
copped the American League pennant and faced the Chicago Cubs in the World
Series. The Cubs of 1906 are regarded as one of the greatest baseball teams of
all time; they won 116 games that year, setting the all-time major league mark
for victories in a season and for winning percentage. The White Sox continued
their winning ways in the World Series, however, trimming their cross town
rivals in six games.

"hitting
for the cycle" Hit a single, double, triple and home run in
the same game, not necessarily in that order.
HORSE COLLAR Describes a situation when a player gets no hits in a game.

KLU Ted Kluszewski played 15 years in the major leagues. He pounded out 279
homers, recorded a lifetime slugging average of nearly .500 and a career
batting average of nearly . 300. He was a favorite of the Cincinnati fans; at
6'2" and 225 pounds, his bulging biceps were too huge to be contained by
ordinary shirt-sleeves. Kluszewski cut off the sleeves and started a new
fashion in baseball uniforms-just as fans and sportswriters cut off part of his
name to make for a nickname more easily pronounced and printed.

LONSOME GEORGE Former legendary Yankee General Manager George Weiss, for
his aloof
ways.

MAHATMA Branch Rickey (1881-1965) was one of baseball's most
influential personalities. Inventor of the farm system, the force responsible
for Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color line, the master builder of the
St. Louis Cardinal and Brooklyn Dodger organizations, he was elected to the
Hall of Fame in 1967. Sportswriter Tom Meany coined Rickey's nickname. Meany
got the idea from John Gunther's phrase describing Mohandas K. Gandhi as
a" combination of God, your own father, and Tammany Hall."

NICKEL SERIES Refers to old days when New York City teams played against
each other and the tariff was a five cents subway ride.

NUMBER l/8 On August 19, 1951, Eddie Gaedel, wearing number l/8,
came to bat for the St. Louis Browns against the Detroit Tigers. Gaedel, who
was signed by Browns owner Bill Veeck, walked on four straight pitches and was
then replaced by a pinch runner. The next day the American League banned
Gaedel, despite Veeck's protests. Gaedel was a midget, only three feet, seven
inches tall.

About Me

Harvey Frommer, A noted oral historian and sports journalist, Harvey Frommer has written many sports books, including timed to 2012 and the 100th anniversary - -"Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox." His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Daily News, Newsday, USA Today, Men's Heath, The Sporting News, Bleacher Report, and of course, this site, among other venues and publications.
FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.
on Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd
on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?locale=en_US
on the Web: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frommer
Dr. Frommer is the Official Book Reviewer of Behind the Bombers Online (BehindtheBombers.com)
*Autographed copies of Frommer books are available .